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Tyler sees Wednesday smile for the first time at the Rav’n. Blood trickling down her face, red and dark, like pomegranate seeds squeezed dry. She’s Hades and he’s Persephone, but what a twisted version of that myth they are. Because surely, despite everything, Persephone never betrayed Hades the way that he has. Hades never walked, unknowingly and unthinkingly, into such a trap, so meticulously crafted.
He’s always been cautious. That was what had secured his place in Lucas’ gang — he had an instinct for self-preservation. He knew the right time to flee from the scene of the crime, and when to linger around so they were just innocent enough not to be suspected.
It probably came from having a police officer for a father. That innate understanding of authority — of what they looked for and overlooked. He’d overheard about enough incompetence to know that as a well-groomed boy, with a father for the Sheriff, there weren’t many fingers that would be pointed in his direction.
It was easy, startlingly so, to kill people.
Tyler has the kind of smile that misleads, a quirk at the edges and dimple on the side that makes others look at him and think of innocence instead of blood. Like his hands aren’t stained with dark, thick red, the kind of blood spills out of the cavities of a body, preciously guarded by skin no more.
Wednesday smiles. Her eyes widen as she looks up at the ceiling and Tyler wants to kiss her, so desperately and fiercely that for once in his miserable existence since the Hyde was unlocked he’s glad of Laurel’s control. Because he has none of his own. Not know; not in the face of Wednesday Addams.
It’s disconcerting this feeling — this physical reaction that seems to render him senseless.
Here’s the thing. Tyler has always been very good at controlling his emotions.
It seems far fetched now, when his heart is held in the thin-boned hands of Wednesday Addams. But before everything — before Wednesday — Tyler had kept his emotions at bay, observing the lapping of their edges flicker into his consciousness with vague curiosity. Emotions to Tyler were anger, and outrage, and distaste. They were not the same kind of feelings that Wednesday seems to evoke, that aching of his heart to the point where it feels too raw, too much.
That’s how he feels when he sees her smile. That twitch of her lips upwards and the crack in her facade — crimson red marring the ivory of her skin — and how she seems happy.
For the first time since Wednesday had stumbled into Weathervane, eyebrows pulled together in a scowl, Tyler sees her smile.
They pull apart from the slipping, sliding mess of the crowd, and Tyler brushes a hand over her hair, slick with paint. It could be blood — he’s seen enough of it to know that it looks convincing enough.
“Are you all right?” Tyler says gently — soft where his edges should be harsh instead. Where they should cut into her, jagged, tearing at her skin. He can’t seem to help it — not with Wednesday. Not with the way her eyes brighten, gleaming like the reflection of the blood under the lights.
“I’m fine,” Wednesday replies. Her lips thin into a line and that smile, so brilliant and blinding, is swallowed. “Why?”
He could say a lot of things. He says nothing.
“No reason,” Tyler says, swallowing a sigh. Trying to reveal Wednesday’s emotions is like cracking a safe, revealing a long-kept, rigorously hidden treasure in its depths.
He’s not lying. This is not another addendum to his masterplan of deception. There is nothing — no words, or expressions, or otherwise, that can describe why he cares. Why he wants to know if Wednesday is okay.
Here’s the thing: Tyler is not an average teenager.
Here’s the thing: neither is Wednesday.
They might be a perfect fit. Depravity and deception rife within the burrows of their hearts.
Tyler doesn’t raise a hand to Wednesday’s face again, not when it’s too tempting. Not when the part of him that is not a Hyde reveals itself too eagerly, desperately, blooming underneath her gaze.
He’s a murderer. Well, a part of him is. Wednesday — for all the bleakness of her personality — is inherently good. Too good for him, at least.
He’d best start remembering that.